So, I played this game with 4 people for the first time today (a quick lunchtime game at work) after having played 3 or 4 times as a two player and, for whatever reason, it seemed broken. Before other hands hit keyboard to shout 'troll!' let me finish; there was just one issue that seemed to fail, and it may just have been an unforunate combination of cards.

Using the suggested draw strategy we ended up with only three of what I would call high-end cards;

* the Ooze with the copy-other ability (instantly named CopyFrog at the table)* the strong dragon, or at least, the dragon with the 'no level 1 or 2 can hit me' power* the death spell that kills 6 defense or lower

(Can you tell I left the game on my desk?). Now, if you know the cards, you can tell that that dragon is the **only** card worth buying. The only thing that can kill it is itself, and even then, only on a roll of '6'.

I can try to post a full deck list if it would help, but it seems that thedraw we got was badly broken, and it left a sour taste in the mouth that everyone left the table a bit bemused that there seemed to be nothing they could do to stop it, other than save money and try to buy their own dragon.

I didnt want to house-rule on day 1, but suffice to sy I was old to bring back the big D card game instead. What did we do wrong?

You didn't do anything wrong. Some cards (cough*dragon*cough) are just inherently better/more cost effective than others, and anyone would be a fool not to buy them. Whether you can deal with that or not will determine how well you like the game.

Having said that, there ARE some "expert" rules in the Quarmageddon expansion that is supposed to address this, though I haven't tried them yet , myself.

The expert rule that requires you to cull the scoring (IE Dragon die) seeks to eliminate one lucky dragon buy from keeping to rear it's ugly head over and over while you get rid of crappier dice to get you dragon out more times.

That said it's a quick dice game that can lead to a lucky roll leading to a quick victory. So you get to play a second time? Kind of like in a certain deck building game where there is a chapel card that can be available that costs a lot less than a certain dragon that leads to quick possibly unbalanced games?

I've played with the "Expert" rules and the standard rules. Learn, teach, and play the expert rules, it makes for a much better/tighter game.

The expert rules come in two parts. The first part gives you two buys instead of just one. This makes smaller creatures and spells more worthwhile purchases. It also makes playing with the second rule more feasible. The second rule makes you cull a creature to score it. This helps eliminate the "runaway dragon/demon" effect that many gamers complained about. It also helps thin out your assistants early to help trim your deck.

The expert rules make for a much more boring game in our opinion (my gaming group). There's no momentum to the game, it just drags on slowly as you score a few points and your "deck" gets reset. YMMV but we hated it.

We do like the "buy two" rule though; just gives you more options without changing things very much.

I played Quarriors yesterday and we houseruled, that all dragons would cost 10 Quiddity instead of their listed price. It worked for us, as it demanded something special to have that much Quiddity in a turn and if you managed it, you deserved to get that dragon.

You could also just leave the dragon out of the game as there are still 9 other monsters to keep you entertained.

But yes, the dragon is really the superior die in this game, but come on. It is a dragon after all, and dragons are awesome!

I personally think the dragons, in all forms are simply too powerful. Raising the cost is not enough in my opinion as rolling one basically guarantees he scores. Dragons should be worth no more than 2 Glory as I said, they're a nearly guaranteed score. Also, their abilities are so insanely powerful, that I think their stat-lines should be nerfed into the ground.

They are a no-brainer die as they stand, if you roll the quiddity for them, you take them, period. The easier solution is we've removed them from the game. Games are quicker now, they are more balanced now and there's no more table flipping.

sorry if anyone else has mentioned this, but despite the dragon being rather overpowered there are ways to make it more effective. one strategy that occurs to me is simply playing deathdealer after the dragon has scored and been moved to the used pile. this way you simply claim the dragon so can score quickly yourself. this scrapping over getting the dragon across the different players allows slightly slower scoring methods to soar ahead.

I'm not sure on the "cull to score rule" but I know in several games, if we had to waste Quiddity because we had just under the cost of the expensive card, then we just felt bad, so I like the buy two option.

I'm not sure on the "cull to score rule" but I know in several games, if we had to waste Quiddity because we had just under the cost of the expensive card, then we just felt bad, so I like the buy two option.

I've never used the buy 2 rule, but I have played most of my games with the cull-what-you-score rule. I like it, because it tends to balance out the game a little by giving other players a chance to catch up when someone has built a lead. The only downside - if you perceive it as such - is that you never get to build up a badass dice sack since anything that scores goes back to the wilds and must be re-purchased; the sense of building up an army of dice is lost.